7 enhancements in Territory Management, CRM 7.0

At the beginning of February 2009, SAP announced the launch of the SAP Business Suite 7. In my opinion, the launch timing could not have been more perfect as SAP Business Suite 7 is designed to help companies in this new economic reality. Under current market conditions, as companies look to do more with less in all areas, sales productivity cannot be an exception. In my previous post on territory management, I spoke about how territory management can be an effective sales productivity tool. In this post, I am outlining the 7 new enhancements in the area of territory management in CRM 7.0. Each of the enhancements contributes directly to one or more of the following tenets of territory management:

Ensuring optimal sales market coverage

Ensuring optimal usage of sales representative’s time

Ensuring optimized information flow in an organization

Following are the 7 enhancements in Territory Management in CRM 7.0

1) Flexible Territory Definition: In CRM 7.0, attribute-based territory definition is replaced with business rule-based territory definition. There are many advantages of rule-based territory definition. Business rules lend flexibility to the territory scope. Even the most complex scope definitions, such as a range of postal codes with exceptions, can be easily maintained using business rules. The secret behind this flexibility is simple: 1) Define rules on attributes of your choice – SAP delivered or custom defined 2) Combine the attributes with a variety of operators such as “is between“, “is not between“, “is less than“, “is greater than and equal to” etc. Business rules also support the creation of exceptions to rule conditions.

An example business rule can be “Postal code + is between + 10000 + and + 20000 + except + postal code + is between + 15000 + and + 16000”.

In addition to providing flexibility in territory definition, business rules provide faster performance by persisting the relationship data between territories, accounts, products and sales areas. In the new browser based UI, the scope of the territories can be viewed in terms of accounts, products and sales areas with in the territory overview page with out having to navigate away. In addition to all of the above, you can over-ride an account’s association to a territory by defining a higher priority business rule in the account overview page.

2) Simulation capabilities: Territory management comes equipped with simulation mode in CRM 7.0. Simulation mode enables you to analyze what-if scenarios by simulating changes to your territories on a KPI of your choice. All the analysis can be done without actually changing the under-lying territory data. The simulated changes can then either be saved or discarded.

3) Territory based Authorizations: Territory based authorizations enable optimized information flow in an organization. Territory based authorizations can be switched on / off at transaction level and can also be controlled at a user level. When switched on at transaction level, the territory based authorizations ensure alignment of account, product and employee responsible with the territory assigned to the document. It is also possible to regulate user access to territories using these authorizations.

4) Territory based Searches: In CRM 7.0, territory ID and territory description can be used as search criterion while searching for accounts, products, one order documents such as opportunities, sales order and most marketing documents.

5) Easier integration with third party applications: A set of enterprise services are delivered with territory management in CRM 7.0 which enable easier integration with third party territory optimization applications.

6) Vacation scenario and Mass Ownership transfer of documents: Vacation scenario functionality enables companies to easily substitute the ownership of a territory from one employee to another while the former employee is on vacation or is leaving the position. In addition to ownership transfer of the territory, it is also possible to transfer the ownership of the documents associated to a territory from one employee to another using the mass ownership transfer of documents functionality.

7) Data consistency: A set of data consistency reports such as accounts with no territories, accounts in multiple territories and territories with no employees are delivered out of the box to ensure data consistency and to avoid gaps and overlap of account coverage.

For further information on Territory Management in CRM 7.0, please refer to the documentation at http://help.sap.com/.

my client is ramp up customer. Just installed CRM7 and imported SP2: I cannot add or see a single rule in BRF from Territory Management application (SALESPRO role). I created a territory hierarchy, but I see no rule set or rules (and cannot create any). What do I need to do – is there a tech docu (I think I did anything in IMG). Thx, dirk

Rule policies and Rule sets have to be created before you can create rules. Documentation is available at help.sap.com on how to create rule policies, rule sets and rules. Please refer to CRM 7.0 application help (http://help.sap.com). Navigate to Components and Functions > Basic Functions > Rule Builder. Let me know in case you need any further information.

Hi Kranti, thank you for the fantastic fast response.In CRM7 in spro there are already business rules for territory managament defined (class CL_CRM_FDT_APPL_TERRMAN_IL, component set TM, ApplComponent CRM-MD-TM) including condition groups Account, product., sales Area etc. Though they are all flagged active, they are not visible out of web UI. Do I need to generate anything?dirk

Try creating a business rule. Once you have entered a description of the rule and selected the Rule set and rule policy, the system will pop-up a window in which you can select the desired attributes. Otherwise, click on “Set Rule Parameters” and the system will give you a list of parameters from which you can choose.

I faced same situation what you are facing. In my case I checked table CRMC_TERRATTRPRP where few attributes were not active. I set them as active and then I am able to use them in my rules for territory. try this!

I appreciate the Blog detailing the new enhancements on TM. Very well. We are working on ramp up customer for 7.0 SP2 .

To comment on authorization part, I found that there is a very common requirement asked by many customers and most discussed topic on Sdn on territories. This is How to provide authorization to employees so that they can only work on their territories. They should not be allowed to edit accounts/ transactions belonging to other territories

I dont see any standard way of achieving this. Can you help us if we can do this in CRM 7.0

You mentioned here ” In addition to all of the above, you can over-ride an account’s association to a territory by defining a higher priority business rule in the account overview page.” you mean the “Employee Assignment” option under “More” button?

By this user can assign only one account at a time.

I have a requirement to exclusively include an a BP in a rule base don Account ID. so say rule for Territory T1 is based on zip code and region e.g. zipcode 11111 and region is NY, rule for Terriroty T2 is based on zipcode 11112 and region NJ. I would like to explicitly assing a customer xyz to T2 whose zipcode is 11111 and region as NY.

Is there a way, an exceptional report/ program which can take care of it. if not

I can manage with business process to exclude this type of account from the terriroty which is based on geocode attributes.

can I explicitly remove an account based on account id. so for above example, I would like to remove customer xyz from T1. i.e. for rule for T2, can I put in the rule where account ID <> xyz?